Talk:Planck length

Moved these statements here since the seemed wishy-washy. Please move them back if you can go into detail about which physicists make these statements and why.

His paper says nothing about its being "the smallest meaningful length in quantum mechanics" although some contemporary physicists talk like that. In 1899 quantum mechanics had not been invented yet. It might or might not be helpful to say "two points separated by less than the Planck length are indistinguishable from each other". This is an issue for today's physicists irrelevant to the original definition of the Planck length a hundred years ago.

It might or might not turn out to be useful to think of it as "the smallest meaningful division of time." One hears speculation about that, but the jury is still out.

Here is an article from Nature that seems to raise doubts about the Planck Length:

http://www.nature.com/nsu/030324/030324-13.html

Uncertainty in Momentum

Uncertainty in momentum is not a momentum, but a delta momentum, in the case of Heisenberg's equation the delta momentum is a range of possible momentums. So I think it should read something like "precision of position of an object to the plank length would mean that it would be impossible to distinguish if the object was a something moving like an electron, or having the capacities of a black hole." This is also meaningless because black holes do not necessarily have momentum.

Compton Length

question: Is this meant to be the same as Compton Wavelength? Also, if one knew the sum total of all energy in the universe, would the corresponding wavelength be the Planck length?

Yes, same as compton wavelength. I don't know what you mean. If you mean the corresponding compton wavelength for all the energy in the world. I'm pretty sure that the answer would be no. The mass that has a compton wavelength equal to the planck length is equal to the planck mass. And the sum total of the energy in the universe is much larger than the energy in the planck mass.McKay

Consequences

The article does not distinguish, but I presume it is not whether or not the baseball is at rest or moving that matters, but that the speed can only be estimated within ±51 mph--JimWae 04:50, 2004 Nov 25 (UTC)

Yes essentially. The uncertainty of velocity in this case would be 51 mph. I don't think it's a +- 51, but that the range is 51, so its like +=25 McKay 00:49, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Does this phenomenon appply to footballs as well as baseballs? Indeed, how about any other type of ball? Arcturus 16:36, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the phenomenon works fine with any object, but I'll bet the masses are different. The article on uncertainty principle covers the ground nicely. Note my recent change to this article though. If you've further questions about the uncertainty principle, feel free to ask (here or my talk page works fine).McKay 23:26, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

So perhaps object would be a better word to use than baseball? I'll change it unless anyone disagrees. Thanks, Arcturus 16:34, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Object doesn't work, because the uncertainty in this case is in the momentum. Since we can probably safely assume the mass of the baseball is unchanged, the uncertainty is in the velocity (the typical case). The momentum is the uncertainty, so you can't just say "object" but you could say an object of 34kilos (or whatever the size of a baseball is, I forget), like a baseball if you want to.

OK let's stick with baseball. However, not being a specialist in these matters I found it difficult to understand the concept as it is currently written. Could you elaborate within the article on the point about the mass? Arcturus 16:52, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Mabey it should say "something with the same mass as a baseball" so people know it doesn't work with all objects.Daniel 19:05, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)